Indeed, but the game is programmed assuming (and enforcing), in many places, that the HP will always fit within a byte (from 0 to 255), for such a feature it would probably be easier to increase actors HP by 50% and say that an actor with HP below 30% of its max HP falls unconscious.
But I must say that, in fact, it only makes sense that a heavily wounded soldier would fall unconscious, having soldiers with 3 HP left, fighting isn't very realistic.
Well, you can always use another variable if going into negatives is not an option.
you got soldeir max health, soldeir current health.
So if hte soldier is reduced below 0 HP, the difference goes into the new variable.
So a soldeir with 30HP gets hit for 50 damage - new variable is now 20.
If that variable becomes greater than maxHP/2 the soldier dies.
Or you could increase HP across the board, but I like this system better, as it clearly differentiates between health and life. You also have to ask yourself what HP represent.
Does 0 HP represent death or does it represent inability to fight further?
Without defining that, talking about realism is pointless. And soldier with 3HP left still fighting? Not as unrealistic as you might think. There have been cases of people who have been shot 100 times (no, not a typo), still fighting.
The whole point of negative HP is there to give you a bufer zone and time to save a soldier. Also to cleary destinguish them fron normal HP. Again, it can be done with a single bar - altough in that case I'd propose the lower part (that would correspond to negative HP) be shaded differently to give you a better idea of your soldiers state.
Also, five modes for the medikit? Isn't that a little too much?
Not really. Is it relaistc for a magical medikit to have super-healing abilities? Does it use magical space energy to heal different types of affliction?
How does it heal? I assume a medikit has advanced diagnostic tools, and a supply of drugs and medicines. But having a single "resource" to heal all wounds and all afflictions? By what principle?
Painkillers and stimulants are not the same thing. I don't see a medikit magicly generating them out of thin air or turning one into another. If you have gauze, alchocol, painkiller and other items in a medikit, once you expend the gauze, you still have the painkiller. It doesn't turn into more gauze.
Which is why I proposed them being separate.
You could combine treat and heal into one I guess.
And stabilise could be implemented as 2-3 uses of Heal/Treat .. that puts it back to 3.
Also I like the old XCOM 3 button system it's more intuitive, but it might be handy if you can set how many doses you can use in one go, for example if the wounded soldier has only 1 critical then just 1 point from the med kit is needed, but if the soldier has 3 crits then the player can select to use 3 doses in one go that uses slightly less than the TUs it normally takes to do 3 separate doses
How is that better?
You shouldn't be able to heal a heavily woulded soldeir quckly. You wants 1 click to take care of 3 criticals in one turn? That kinds cheapns hte severy of the wounds.
Also, what I propose is kinda liek the X-Com system.